1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to backup operations and more particularly relates to transparent backup to a hierarchical storage system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data processing systems regularly store data of great worth to an organization. The data may be organized as one or more data sets. The data sets may include database files, linked data arrays, flat files, and the like. A data processing system may back up the data sets to a remote storage device to preserve the data sets in case the data sets stored within the data processing system are lost or corrupted. For example, a data management application executing on the data processing system may back up a plurality of data sets from a data source of a data server to a remote storage device such as a magnetic tape drive.
The data management application may use the Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) from the NDMP Initiative to back up one or more data sets to a remote data storage device. NDMP provides the data management application with functions for backing up data sets and restoring the data sets. For example, the data management application may use NDMP tape server to back up and/or restore data sets to a magnetic tape drive. As used herein, magnetic tape drives are referred to as tape drives.
Unfortunately, NDMP tape server requires the data management application to perform storage management processes for the tape drive. Thus the data management application must identify a volume, select a tape drive, mount the tape, position the tape, specify an offset and size for a data set, direct the reading of the data set, and dismount the tape to retrieve the data set from the magnetic tape.
The requirements of an NDMP tape server make it difficult for the data management application to track and manage data sets stored to a remote storage device such as a tape drive. In addition, the data management application must be configured to perform data management tasks to preserve, manage, and restore the data sets.